head to head · open source
changedetection.io vs colly
changedetection.io has 34,295 GitHub stars, 2,063 forks, 385 open issues and last shipped yesterday. colly has 25,520 stars, 1,862 forks, 195 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. changedetection.io leads on adoption by 34% (34,295 vs 25,520 stars). changedetection.io is written in Python under Apache-2.0; colly is written in Go under Apache-2.0. changedetection.io has attracted 6% as many forks as stars, colly 7%. changedetection.io was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee.
Two open source projects, one decision. Both are free and self-hostable — the differences are community size, license terms, language stack and release pace.
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Side by side
| changedetection.io | colly | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 34K | ★ 26K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Python | Go |
| Last push | 2026-09-17 | 2026-09-16 |
| Forks | ⑂ 2.1K | ⑂ 1.9K |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick changedetection.io if
- You weight community size — 34K stars and counting
- You want the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Python
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick colly if
- You want the colly feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You evaluated both and colly fits your workflow better
About changedetection.io
changedetection.io is an open source website change detection and web page monitoring tool written in Python and released under the Apache 2.0 license. It watches URLs, detects when their content changes, and sends alerts through channels such as Discord, Email, Slack, Telegram, and Webhook. The project lives in the Data & Analytics / Data Extraction & Web Scraping ecosystem, carries more than 34,000 stars and 2,000 forks on GitHub, and has been developed for roughly six years. It is designed to be self hosted, and the same codebase also backs a hosted subscription service offered by the maintainers.…
read the full changedetection.io overview →
About colly
Colly is an open source scraping and crawling framework written in Go, distributed under the Apache 2.0 license. It lives in the Go ecosystem and is consumed as a library rather than a standalone application: the README describes it as providing a clean interface for writing any kind of crawler, scraper, or spider, and the project's own topics list it as a crawler, crawling framework, scraper, scraping tool, and spider. The repository has been public for roughly nine years, carries 25,516 stars and 1,862 forks, and its most recent push was on 2 September 2026. Documentation and examples are hosted at go colly.org…
read the full colly overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is changedetection.io or colly more popular?
changedetection.io has 34,295 GitHub stars and colly has 25,520. changedetection.io has the larger community by that measure.
Are changedetection.io and colly free?
Both are open source. changedetection.io is licensed under Apache-2.0 and colly under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between changedetection.io and colly?
changedetection.io is written in Python and colly in Go. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, changedetection.io or colly?
Choose changedetection.io if you want the larger community (34,295 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose colly if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.